Posted on 02/07/2014 11:03:49 AM PST by b4its2late
President Obama must believe he's politically untouchable at this point, given his seeming indifference to the multitude of scandals, failures and other outrages for which he is directly responsible.
I intended to write this column solely on the devastating Congressional Budget Office report putting the final nail in the Obamacare coffin -- or at least it would be the final nail in a sane world -- but everywhere I turn in the news, I'm bombarded with evidence of equally troubling nightmares. So, in fairness to balance and diversity, I decided not to dwell on CBO-gate alone but to share with you the smorgasbord of disasters.
Let's begin with CBO-gate, which does deserve its own column but will now have to accept but a few paragraphs here. I'm not so sure what's more outrageous, the egregious news itself or the administration's and the Democratic Party's disgracefully deceitful spinning in denying it.
There are just no two ways about it. On Tuesday, the CBO released a report forecasting that the laughably titled Affordable Care Act will cause the equivalent of more than 2 million full-time employees leaving the U.S. workforce in the next decade. Note that the nonpartisan CBO didn't say the law will initially cause unemployment and then later recover.
An administration that cared about the American people wouldn't have spent the next 48 hours trying to distort this information into a pretzelized news nugget that is less damaging to the administration. The White House and Democrats came out of the woodwork trying to turn this spoiled, rancid, inedible lemon into lemon meringue pie with dollops of whipped cream. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid spun this as a positive development because it lets Americans be "free agents." House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi brags that people "are no longer job-blocked."
The CBO's projections aren't hard to believe, because they are consistent with what we are already observing. CBO Director Douglas Elmendorf said, "By providing heavily subsidized health insurance to people with very low income and then withdrawing those subsidies as income rises, the act creates a disincentive for people to work."
Consider another major news item that screamed its way onto my computer screen. Tim Armstrong, CEO for AOL, said Obamacare will cost his company an additional $7.1 million, so it has to decide whether to pass that cost onto employees or cut other benefits (which, I might note, also would come out of the employees' pockets -- you know, those little guys Obama professes to care about). A less anecdotal report, from The Washington Examiner, reveals that a Duke University survey of top companies found that 44 percent are considering reducing health benefits to current employees because of Obamacare.
Also staring out at me from my desktop was the Washington Post report that according to an analysis from Avalere Health, fewer than 2 million Americans enrolled in Medicaid in 2013 because of the Affordable Care Act. The analysis concludes that there were between 1.1 million and 1.8 million ACA sign-ups but says that many Medicaid enrollees would have signed up even without the law. So the administration is not only grossly exaggerating the number of sign-ups -- at some 6.3 million -- but also taking credit for them when many would have happened anyway. Even CNN described this report as a blow to the Obama administration, saying, "Just a fraction of the more than 6 million people the Obama administration has touted as being determined eligible for Medicaid under Obamacare are new enrollees."
Next, I saw The Daily Caller's report that the administration has unilaterally changed the law to allow immigrants with "limited" terror contact into the United States. These new exemptions are to a law that bars certain asylum seekers and refugees who provided "limited material support" to terrorists who are believed to pose no threat to the U.S. Doesn't that make you feel giddy?
My cyberspace monitor then directed my attention to a disturbing Fox News report that the infernal Obamacare website doesn't provide a way for customers to appeal errors when enrolling online for insurance. Now here's a concrete example of how much this administration cares about the "little guy." Fox, incidentally, did not break this story. The Washington Post did and said that the problem has already impacted some 22,000 Americans who believe they got stiffed by the website by being overcharged, by being steered into the wrong policies or otherwise. A House committee is investigating.
The Wall Street Journal also elbowed its way onto my screen, describing President Obama's claim that there was "not even a smidgen of corruption" or political motivation in the Internal Revenue Service's handling of groups applying for tax-exempt status as a "fairy tale." In a separate story, the Journal reported that insurers are facing pressure from regulators and lawmakers about plans that offer limited choices of doctors and hospitals, which insurers say is vital to keep down coverage prices because of Obamacare.
In other news, there's the ongoing Obama cover-up on Benghazi and the recent confirmation from experts that our budgetary outlook is headed straight to Hades because of unconscionable spending and Obama's singular refusal even to consider entitlement reform.
There's plenty of good news, but I'll save my column on the Gospel for Easter.
I don’t know; were they screaming “ENOUGH!” as the went into the gas chambers? Were they screaming “ENOUGH!” as they went to the gulag, or the killing fileds?
Obviously it can go quite a bit further.
I'd say, not quite yet!
Maybe when they’re being loaded into the FEMA busses?
Election Question for the Day:
“IF Welfare undergoes “fusion” with Obamacare, THEN does Obamacare become the ultimate Middle Class Entitlement called OBAMAFARE?”
Yep, unfortunately. People are too preoccupied with other stuff than to care what actually matters in their lives. Years ago there was only the newspapers. People paid attention.
I think more and more people are disturbed by what they see.
But the GOP isn’t going to be able to capitalize on that if they won’t make a bold stand against it and offer themselves as the clear alternative that will set things right.
Whether they are talking about Obamacare, or immigration, or the war, or abuses by the regulatory agencies, even the most clear-cut and egregious abuses by the Obama regime, their responses are invariably timid and hesitant and mealy-mouthed and foot-noted with hems and haws.
The only ones who speak clearly are Cruz, Palin, Lee, and Paul (and even he is weak on some things). And the rest of the party falls all over themselves trying to shush them up.
You got that right. I saw that. Amazing.
People who say they're conservative, said he should shut up.
He's been mischaracterized about it up to this point.
No one especially in the Republican party, pushing Christie, Ryan. Cantor, Jeb Bush and Romney, have said one good word about him
He is the only one who did anything substantial about this, and through the complete insanity of our electorate, no one seriously considers this fact.
This and the fact that he is someone who successfully argued Nine cases to the Supreme Court, and so it won't be any one lesser than this who can get as close as he did to shutting this thing down.
this is a lot of whining, when do we say enough.
We have said enough, and were shut down by the leader of the country, the man who would be in charge of those responsible for this, by not doing anything against it, Rience Preibus.
Or whatever his name is.
He is in charge of this.
People who say they're conservative, said he should shut up.
He's been mischaracterized about it up to this point.
No one especially in the Republican party, pushing Christie, Ryan. Cantor, Jeb Bush and Romney, have said one good word about him
He is the only one who did anything substantial about this, and through the complete insanity of our electorate, no one seriously considers this fact.
This and the fact that he is someone who successfully argued Nine cases to the Supreme Court, and so it won't be any one lesser than this who can get as close as he did to shutting this thing down.
this is a lot of whining, when do we say enough.
We have said enough, and were shut down by the leader of the country, the man who would be in charge of those responsible for this, by not doing anything against it, Rience Preibus.
Or whatever his name is.
He is in charge of this.
I’ve noticed that the latest prog rebuttal to all the stories of lost insurance policies, etc. is to scream “Anecdotal! Anecdotal!”
Disgusting.
There. I said it twice.
What's worse, is that the subsidies aren't removed smoothly. Instead, they are sharply stepped. That means that if your income increases by a few thousand dollars, you face a marginal cost of over 100%. Why bust your hump for less net money?
People won’t scream “enough” as long as Uncle Sam keeps giving them handouts. They will die lazy and dependent rather than living free and independent.
The Moocher Majority is happy with Obama Gump and his Socialist Utopia.
It is malcontents like we Bitter Clingers, patriots, WWII vets and rabid pro-constitutionalists who have a problem with Dear Leader.
These days it’s not possible to scream enough.
I am trying to understand why if Obama hates income inequality why is he extending it by paying people not to work.
Nah, they'll all be given the WIFI password and free Starbucks and they'll compliantly get on.
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